Lately the days have been really kind to me, and so have the people around me. I haven’t written about quite some goodness in my life of late.

Some time back, we went out and watched Transformers II, oh yes a movie lot of people are still waiting to see, but boy it’s an amazing movie, I m planning to go and watch it again soon.

Last weekend I was out with friends and decided to hit the Escape theme park, what we experienced there was plain awesomeness, though we know there was lots missing there and that a lot of rides were for kids, but then again we are kids at some level! so hell yeah we enjoyed that alot, for those who are going to ask for pictures please know that we were having so much fun we couldn’t snap pictures

Anyways, and now we’re planning more goodness for the coming weekend. Ice Age 3 in a 3d cinema is in the agenda

Oh and btw, I kinda lost a 100 SGD :S

Tags: 100 SGD, 3d, balach, escape, fun, go cart, ice age 3, Lost, movie, mufadil, Park, saad, shahzad, theme, transformers 2, water, wet, wild

So about two weeks at out own apartment, it feels really good. The feeling of staying away from office when it’s a weekend is really good. No one actually knocks from the office to wake you up. I love that!

While I was at work on Friday, I got my package, finally. Now I have my awesome threadless T-Shirts.
I bought three, Barrow Bath, The Shower and Let’s get physical. These are awesome t-shirts.

Also since we finally did our product demo, which must’ve gone smooth, I wasn’t there, but I m hoping it did went well.

Also we went for the movie “I love you man” on Friday, man it’s one freakin awesome movie, you’ll laugh till the end, for those who don’t know it’s about a guy who doesn’t have male friends, and he needs a ‘best man’ for his wedding, the movie is about his quest for one.

Also we went for a night safari just yesterday, me, Saad and Balach. In all honesty it wasn’t as awesome, it went fine, wasn’t as ‘awesome fun’. But yeah the awesome part was the awesome ‘black pepper crab’ we had after that. That was awesome. Sadly Saad just puked after that congestion you know

Some pictures here if you’re on facebook. Also which reminds me, I got my facebook username, did you get one ? Mine is facebook.com/dehog

Tags: awesomeness, cricket, demo, night safari, threadless, tshirts, work

This is the first week end at our new place, I m not going to say this weekend has been awesome far, because that would be a lie, I have been trying to work out somethings, sadly it hasn’t been working. I had been busy trying to manage some folks from India, but these guys even though they’re ok with the work they do, they have time problems, which in turn affects out work, product and of course deadlines, which we had decided would be strict, but right now thats a little problem.

Anyways, last night around 3am, I was down right tired, even after a double dose of Red Bull, and I needed some kind of break, I decided to call mom back in Karachi, it’s always a treat to listen to her (One of the best women alive!), I had some 5 minutes chat with her, in which I learned that my grandma’s sister is really sick, her kidneys have failed, and she’s obviously not in her best health. I need to call her today hopefully.

While I spoke to mom, I got to know that Amin (aka Kato) Bhai’s  wife had also passed away, and it is her Soyem today. May Allah bless her and Amin bhai, and all the muslims of the world.

After moving in the new apartment, I m actually going home, and the apartment is not very close to the work place, which I find pretty good, it gives you time to relax and chill out. Otherwise it’s just office, which is pretty looserish in my opinion.

Anyways, I haven’t really posted pictures of my apartment on my blog, but they’re on my facebook presence, check them out here.

Tags: animation, apartment, cricket, flat, home, india, load of work, new, Pakistan, weekend, work

This weekend was awesome, we crossed borders on foot.. and we shifted our apartment !

Most of the Game Ventures team (except, Siddharth and Pete) went to Malaysia for Lunch. It was at Nandos, ok so why didn’t we have Nandos in Singapore..? Because we don’t freakin have Nandos here :S

So anyways, I had to stay up all Friday night, just so I can wake every other guy, to go to Malaysia, because we had to go at around 12pm, but obviously that didn’t happen, we left at around 1pm.

Since we went to Johor Bahru, which is the nearest to Singapore, it felt like I was in Dubai again. Thankfully it wasn’t Anyways we went to where Nandos is, just to discover it’s no more there. So we then called up Zaki’s friend who told us where the other Nando’s is..

Cutting the crap.. we had the best lunch since we had been to Singapore. Thanks to Ahmed on quite some note, because thats why we came here. Any how, we then left to roam around the city, we ended up to some mall and spent like a lot of time there, and I was like really effed up in the mind.. why because I hadn’t freakin slept

Then later that night, Weng had come, so me, Saad, Zaki, Zulfiqar and Weng went of for dinner while the rest of the guys headed off for Singapore, there we had some Shish, but obviously I didn’t and the light food was awesome which was Saate and some other malay/sing food.

Then Weng dropped up to the Customs at Malay, from there we walked, and walked long, really long, to Singapore, which is awesomeness !

Then we come to Sunday, we shopped kick ass today, lots of stuff since we had to move, and  we went to IKEA, Best Buy, Bess Point, and God know’s where else..

We had the last signing thing happen and then we cooked, or lets say, Fraz and Ali did, and the plan was to make Karahi Chicken, or Biryani, but due to the lack of Na’an, they ended up making Karahi Chawal but it tasted good.. like F**k freakin good !

And now we are sitting are a**es.. going to sleep after doing our accounts

Tags: apartment, food, frakin good, fun, malaysia, move, nandos, shift, singapore, team, travel, walk, week end, xuqa

This last week plus the week end has been the best since I came to Singapore, no kidding. Why you may ask..

The deviantArt Meet up

I attended the kick ass deviantart meet up organized by $spyed & $heidi from deviantart. These people are on a world tour, so they are going to be seen in a dozen of places. I met some awesome people there, some of whom have the best art skills I have ever seen, these people know what they are doing and are freakin good at it.

If you’d like to see the pictures, you’ll have to logon to facebook, here’s the link to the album.

The roaming around

Me and Saad had decided that we’ll go out and check out Singapore since we hadn’t really gone far from office that much and hadn’t really seen Singapore even though we have been here for quite a number of days, so this week end, the plan was in place, we left home on Saturday at around 3pm-ish and had the best time of our lives.. found some bachi’s who were super hot.. Man it was awesome I tell ya So yeah we took some time off and enjoyed the week end, we later went for pool table.. that was fun.

Picture, here ya go and here you got too.. Again these are on facebook.

Swatch

I got my hands on a swatch and a swatch on my hand. yo yo yo.. loving it ! I bought this.

Sentosa

Me, Pete, Saad and Balach went to Sentosa Island today, the experience wasn’t as we expected, why ? since we went freakin late, thanks to the f**ked up monopoly session last night.. I m not playing that game again, at least with the folks here.

But I think it was ok, at least compared to sitting at home, it was awesome !

Pictures, thought you’d never ask.. here.

Tags: balach, deviantart, fun, hotness, meet up, merlion park, peter, poland, polish, russia, russian, saad, sentosa, shahzad, swatch, watch, yaay

I m not going to write much on my life in this post, I m going to write about Tea Break here.

For me the project Tea Break started when Asim Imtiaz and me used to sit only rooms apart and me and Zair sat inches apart in Creative Chaos. Asim got me into this project since he had seen me working on freelance projects that had turned out beautiful. Anyways the moment Asim told me about the idea, I knew I was going to be a part of it, but I never got to make the design of the first version since I was busy with some stuff, and Zair managed to bring the first design online.

The second design we pushed online, which is still online as I write this post, was made by me, I did the design and most of the front end code, then Asim had all the development fronts covered, Zair helped me a tiny bit with the CSS, and Ammar was the mastermind when it came to market our little baby that was Teabreak.

There was a launch party held when we pushed this major update on the website, and I got to meet some really awesome people that includes Madam Jehan Ara, Ramla Akhter, Munir Usman, Imad Qamar and some I knew from before like Dr. Awab Alvi (who I believe is more blogger than a doc ).

We had many updates to follow after that and we covered many blogging events after that, and the response had mostly been awesome, except some tid bits. When ever I got to speak about Tea Break I did so and people got excited when I told them that I designed that website.

Later after quite some time had passed, we thought we needed to upgrade it a bit, and we starting taking feedback from users and also started building up a database of our ideas and new requirements. During this time, I flew to Dubai, where I had no access to a personal computer, only my office iMac, I obviously wasn’t allowed any work on that, so Tea Break suffered some development time on that, but it wasn’t long till I realised Dubai wasn’t the place for me, so I flew back when I had an offer from this another company ‘Xuqa‘, and the thought that it’s a game development company made it even better, so any how, I flew back to Pakistan, but even then due to my work hours I still wasn’t able to work on Tea Break, then the company decided that all it’s employees are going to be moved to Singapore, which is obviously super nice , so we moved here and again, lack of time followed me, but any how, I found a week end and finally did a design. It looks good to me, but sadly due to the amount of work I already have, I will not be working on Tea Break as of now.

Even though it’s been an awesome experience, I m going to go off the Tea Break experience, since I believe my work (both, paid and for Tea Break) was being effected, I could concentrate on only one thing at a time, and I chose money ( ) , no I m quitting Tea Break at least for a while due to the amount of work I have here at Xuqa (now Game Ventures), also since I couldn’t dedicate any time to Tea Break, I didn’t want it to suffer any more because of me. I m sure the rest of the Tea Break team will find an awesome designer to fit into place. I might join Tea Break at a later stage, but for now I m not working on it, I need to focus on my office work first.

It has been an awesome journey with you guys (Asim, Ammar, Asadullah, Zair), I wish you all the best for the future of Tea Break and it’s child projects.

Tea Break is and will always be in my heart and mind, it’s one of the best things I have done

Tags: ammar, asadullah, asim, awab, awesome, break, deisng, designer, development, game ventures, imad, jehan, loose, main, munir, quit, ramla, tea, team, win, work, xuqa, Zair

I m writing this post a few days after by birthday, which I had on the 22nd of April, and why was is this a late post, because I was occupied by by quite some stuff.

The 22nd of April, even though was my birthday, it isn’t that much of a special day, it’s like the norm. I mean I grew a year older, one more year for being alive. Thank you everyone who called, emailed, messaged me a birthday wish.

I’ve also been occupied by the cricket game we’re building, and I m pretty sure it’s going to knock your socks off. I just got started with the animations part, I m hoping it gets interesting for me to develop and for you to play..

Recently when Adobe Flash CS4 launched, they added up some really good features to it, one such tool they added is called ‘the bone tool’, what does it do ? see here.

Also I had a word with my family lately, and I got to know that my mom’s friend’s parents passed away, please pray for them, may their souls rest in peace. Ameen.

Anyways, I m gonna cut this post short, it’s freakin 5:11 am here, I need to sleep a bit. Ciao.

Tags: 22nd April, adobe, birthday, cs4, death, flash, friends, fun, Happening, life, miss, normal, random, work

Ever had the days when the week ends would be just awesome. Well this last week end they partly were. I had some really cool yet weird incidents happening.

First it was Ronnie, I met him at the Reception to the gym, and it was totally unexpected, I as heading for the gym, signing in, and comes this guy, appreciating my hair style, I thank him, while he suddenly asks me if I m a designer, obviously since ‘I am’ I say so.. The next thing I know is I m talking to him standing right there for the next 30 minutes. He’s even more surprized when he gets to know I m from Pakistan, and he’s not only surprized, he’s shocked. I would be too if I were him, Pakistan’s build up a pretty bad image recently. But any how, we parted exchanging numbers. And one thing’s for sure he’s a pretty big Obama Supporter. I was pretty exhausted that day since I hadn’t slept last night, so I went to bed early, and I had described the whole thing to my office mates..

Some time around 9pm these folks go out for dinner, and guess who they come across.. Ronnie. He’s having dinner some where near too, and he comes over to my office mates, and asks them if they’re Indian, to which the guys replied they’re from Pakistan, and he jumps up and says I met a Pakistani guy today and he had a mohawk.. and he tells my mates to ask me to call him. and I finally did yesterday, but his cellphone was turned off.

Any how, Saturday we were to get a Cat for the office, how cool is that, isn’t ? Well yeah it’s a kitten and it’s super nice. It’s nice to have a little thing popping around. It’s a little distraction, but a positive one I’d say. We even had some nice dinner at a desi place.

Sunday was mostly stay home kind of day, but I managed to finish off on Ahmed’s university project, which was partly on account of work. Anyhow I’d say this was a better weekend. And I like the new prata place that’s opened up near by.

I also did a Mohawk based desktop background recently, which can be downloaded from here.

Tags: cat, desi, dinner, fun, gym, mates, mohawk, office, Pakistan, pet, ronnie, stray

So I flew back to Singapore on Thursday, 2nd of April at night, and got here in the morning of the 3rd. I wouldn’t say it was the best flight I ever took, but I guess it did the job, I m not going to whine much, since I’ve gone through some really nice things lately.

When I flew back here, there was some work to be done from my side, which had taken me pretty long, and thats because I was on an artist’s block, yeah we artists go through one every now and then.. but as soon as I was here, some sort fo enery blew through me, mostly due to the chnage of environment, and voila I had the thing done and approved, a big smile on my CEO’s face mean’t some good things, and guess what, I got an iMac to work on.. I had been asking for a mac since Jan, so this, came out pretty good.

I was setting up the mac today (4th April) , I noticed there was an extra white (polycarbonate) mac also lying around, I little pooch paach I found out it was our Game designer’s extra mac that was lying at home, and since our Game Dev wanted to use it he had bought this baby to office.. I bet he’s feeling good he did too.. I asked him if he was interested in selling it, and hell yeah, there it was.. I got it off him.. This very post is being written on it The story does not end here mates (if there’s anyone reading that is ) by evening I knew I wanted to go out, but by going out or doing something doesn’t mean eating out, thats not going out and doing things, so our CTO and Game developer thought it’s best to hit the gym, and thats what we did. We stayed there for roughly 30 minutes, but I think thats good enough to get us started back on. I did the cycling for 10 minutes on about 90+ RPM and than Ran for about 5-7 minutes. It’s not that much I know, I just started back on.

Lets hope I can keep it going that way, and ladies and gentlemen, we’re still not done yet, I managed to set up the macs, yes both of them, and still manage to prepare a rough draft of another game we’re working on. Which I plan to be done with atleast the mock ups by Monday Inshallah.

Thats basically it for now. I m going to hit the bed or maybe watch a movie now. Ciao.

Tags: apple, applications, artists block, beautiful, CEO, CTO, cycling, flight, fun, good, graphics, GUI, gym, job, mac, nice, running, singapore, workout

It was around a few months ago when I had donated blood for the thalassemia patients, when I was employed at Creative Chaos, it’s been a long time.. and a very long time if I speak in internet time.

Any how, I was at the Blogap forum, when I read the post by Ayesha, that said that they are looking for blood donors. I was easily tempted at the idea of getting my blood into some one else’s veins, but anyway, help is good, so I decided I’ll do this.

Yesterdey after work, even though I was like super sleepy, I decided that I’ll go to Iqra University and meet Uzey and Abdullah. While I was there I got to catch up with Fahd and Iraj too, which turned out to be nice.

After that I hit Asim’s place, which is one of the best places I go, no kidding, where we called up Kamran and went to Aga Khan hospital, I got myself registered, and waited a few minutes before it was my time to give blood. I guess I was done in a few minutes.

Now I hope that blood does go to some one really in need. May God bless. Ameen.

Tags: abdullah, asim, blood, donate, fahd, help, iraj, kamran, thalassemia, uzey